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Leaked Boris letter to Downing St: It is wrong to see the task as maintaining 'no border'

The British Foreign Secretary has written a letter to Theresa May about the border issue.

Updated at 8.20pm 

BORIS JOHNSON HAS told Prime Minister Theresa May ”it is wrong to see the task as maintaining ‘no border’” on the island of Ireland in the wake of Brexit.

The British Foreign Secretary’s letter to Downing Street was leaked to Sky News.

According to the broadcaster, the letter also seeks to play down the “exaggerated impression” of “how important checks are” at EU borders.

Although the UK has made assurances that there will not be a border between Ireland and Northern Ireland after Brexit, it has not yet offered a solution whereby it could leave the single market and customs union yet maintain no border checks.

In his letter, Johnson apparently goes as far as considering the reintroduction of a hard border, telling May:

Even if a hard border is reintroduced, we would expect to see 95% + of goods pass the border [without] checks.

The EU’s draft of the planned Brexit divorce agreement will be unveiled tomorrow.

RTÉ’s Tony Connolly is reporting this evening that the territory of Northern Ireland may be considered part of EU customs territory post-Brexit.

Connolly reports that the text will allude to a single regulatory space on the island of Ireland with no internal barriers.

Tomorrow’s divorce agreement will spell out in detail the agreement reached between the EU and the UK in December on three key topics: the fate of expatriate citizens and the financial settlement of divorce will be included as well as the future of the Irish border.

EU negotiator Michel Barnier has acknowledged the 120-page draft would “render operational” a controversial ‘backstop’ opposed by London on the issue of how to avoid a hard border between the Republic and the North.

The fallback option says that if no better solution is found, Northern Ireland would remain in “full alignment” with the EU’s single market and customs union in order to uphold the Good Friday Agreement.

“The Irish question cannot remain unresolved,” Barnier said today.

‘Interesting few weeks’

Speaking in response to a question from Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald in the Dáil today, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that the Irish government had, in the wake of the UK Brexit referendum, sought “an assurance from the United Kingdom that there would be no hard border and that everything possible would be done to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland”.

“We got that verbal assurance last year. We then sought to have that written down in black and white and made into a political agreement. We got that political agreement last December.

“Since then we have sought to turn the black and white text of the political agreement and commitment into a legal text which forms a protocol to the withdrawal agreement. The Deputy will see that legal text tomorrow.

I am satisfied that it sets down in law how we can avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

He said, however, that the withdrawal agreement “is a draft text and we cannot automatically assume it will be acceptable to the United Kingdom or to all the parties in Northern Ireland”.

We could have an interesting few weeks ahead of us, as was the case last December. It will have to become a legal text by October this year.

Varadkar said that Tánaiste Simon Coveney had met Barnier this week and and had seen the draft legal text.

GettyImages-924879842 Boris Johnson arriving for a cabinet meeting at No 10 Downing Street today. Jack Taylor / Getty Images Jack Taylor / Getty Images / Getty Images

Earlier, Johnson was criticised for saying the Irish border issue could be solved in the same way that people travel across different boroughs of London.

He was speaking to BBC Radio about various Brexit issues, and highlighted methods used in the UK capital to calculate the city congestion charge as pointing the way towards solving the issue of the border after Brexit.

Johnson said: “There’s no border between Camden and Westminster.

But when I was mayor of London we anaesthetically and invisibly took hundreds of millions of pounds from the accounts of people travelling between those two boroughs without any need for border checks whatever.

When it was put to the foreign minister that he couldn’t possibly compare the Irish border issue and the London congestion charge, Johnson was insistent, and called it a “very relevant comparison”.

“There’s all sorts of scope for pre-booking, electronic checks, all sorts of things that you can do to obviate the need for a hard border to allow us to come out of the customs union, take back control of our trade policy and do trade deals,” he said.

Fianna Fáil TD Stephen Donnelly called Johnson’s comments “extraordinary” and referenced his own time living in London.

He said: “I lived in Camden for several years, and was never stopped crossing the ‘border’ to Islington.

I have, however, had military rifles pointed at me when crossing into Northern Ireland in the 90s. Suggesting these borders are the same is extraordinary.

Sinn Féin’s David Cullinane said: “I would suspect that a basic knowledge of geography and borders would be a requirement of a foreign minister but it appears the Tory party has other ideas.

Boris Johnson’s comments today are so devoid of actual intelligence as to give a brain freeze to those unfortunate enough to hear them… Lest there be any doubt, the Irish border issue post-brexit is not the same as a city congestion charge.

A spokesman for foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney said he had no comment on the reported letter tonight.

- With reporting from Daragh Brophy 

Read: Jeremy Corbyn calls for new customs union with EU after Brexit

Read: ‘Pure illusion’: That was the EU’s withering assessment of Theresa May’s Brexit plan

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    Mute Artur Gurta
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    Mar 6th 2019, 8:51 PM

    One less BMW tailgating me on the m50

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    Mute paul kelly
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    Mar 6th 2019, 9:25 PM

    @Artur Gurta: comment of the day sir

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    Mute Margate
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    Mar 6th 2019, 9:45 PM

    @Artur Gurta: Classy…not much value on Life one must deduce.

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    Mute TheTrustedChalice
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    Mar 6th 2019, 10:26 PM

    @Margate: do you like drug dealers?

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    Mute Martin Gordon
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    Mar 6th 2019, 10:31 PM

    @Margate: I didn’t know bmw’s were alive

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    Mute Jamie
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    Mar 6th 2019, 5:45 PM

    Pew pew

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    Mute Jack lynch
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    Mar 6th 2019, 5:45 PM

    Pretty sure there is a car chase. Theres a garda heli going back and fowards around blanch sc and about 20 garda sirens.

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    Mute Stephen Tyrrell
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    Mar 6th 2019, 5:58 PM

    @Jack lynch: found the shooter in fortlawn

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    Mute Monika Broughill
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    Mar 6th 2019, 5:59 PM

    @Jack lynch: A garda car flew by us chasing a car driving away from there

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    Mute Billy McNamara
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    Mar 6th 2019, 6:08 PM

    @Stephen Tyrrell: Hope so.

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    Mute Jack lynch
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    Mar 6th 2019, 6:12 PM

    @Monika Broughill: which way were they going, i could only hear the sirens and see the heli but guessed it was probably a shooting so didnt go any closer.

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    Mute Monika Broughill
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    Mar 6th 2019, 6:13 PM

    @Jack lynch: We were heading to Hartstown, they flew by us heading towads the centre

    16
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    Mute Jack lynch
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    Mar 6th 2019, 6:16 PM

    @Monika Broughill: i think they went through blanch from there cause the heli went over towards westend and then back up by the industrial estate

    14
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    Mute Nigel Garvey
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    Mar 6th 2019, 6:21 PM

    @Monika Broughill: you’ve got flying cars in Dublin…. I must admit you’s Dubs have a paler shade of complexity ….

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    Mute Monika Broughill
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    Mar 6th 2019, 6:22 PM

    @Jack lynch: We saw it going but we didn’t stop so not sure what happened.

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    Mute David Farrell
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    Mar 6th 2019, 7:39 PM

    @Stephen Tyrrell: wrong !!!!

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    Mute Jack lynch
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    Mar 6th 2019, 7:49 PM

    @David Farrell: care to elaborate?

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    Mute David Farrell
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    Mar 6th 2019, 7:53 PM

    @Jack lynch: no

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    Mute Jack lynch
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    Mar 6th 2019, 8:45 PM

    @David Farrell: Hahaha no problem

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    Mute Rob Cahill
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    Mar 7th 2019, 9:40 AM

    @Jack lynch: If he’s got he’s going away for a long… I mean a couple of years.

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    Mute j4VEpUO8
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    Mar 6th 2019, 5:42 PM

    Another one bites the dust. The UK have knife casualties, we have gun casualties.

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    Mute brendan H
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    Mar 7th 2019, 3:24 AM

    Where’s the post I put up asking the question about why ye didn’t report on the 180 illegal immigrants and asylum seekers and counting, that were caught driving taxis in Ireland among them Isis supporters and s3x offenders. Ye seem to be borrowing you heads in the sand. At the last count it was nearly 300 thumbs up in an hour. Yer not in touch with the real world I’m afraid.

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    Mute Uncle Montys oaf
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    Mar 6th 2019, 5:52 PM

    Same road where yer man was shot few weeks back.

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    Mute Kenneth O Brien
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    Mar 6th 2019, 5:56 PM

    @Uncle Montys oaf: ye just about 500 yards up it and same last name but not related to each other

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    Mute Jack lynch
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    Mar 6th 2019, 6:13 PM

    @Kenneth O Brien: do you know who the victim is?

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    Mute Kenneth O Brien
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    Mar 6th 2019, 6:30 PM

    @Jack lynch: ye

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    Mute Boeing Lover
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    Mar 6th 2019, 8:03 PM

    @Kenneth O Brien: not the say name

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    Mute Boeing Lover
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    Mar 6th 2019, 8:04 PM

    @Boeing Lover: same*

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    Mute DeeM
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    Mar 6th 2019, 8:50 PM

    Jeez our city has gone to the dogs!! Every day there are stories of drug seizures…which is good and worse…shootings!! Revolving door judicial system does not help our Gardai trying to get the s%$m off our streets.

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    Mute Kenneth O Brien
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    Mar 6th 2019, 5:35 PM

    There dead outside a shop

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    Mute Aideen Pollard
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    Mar 6th 2019, 6:55 PM

    @Kenneth O Brien: no they’re not. Critical in hospital at the moment

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    Mute TheTrustedChalice
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    Mar 6th 2019, 7:00 PM

    @Aideen Pollard: DEAD

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    Mute David Farrell
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    Mar 6th 2019, 7:40 PM

    @Kenneth O Brien: wrong

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    Mute Aideen Pollard
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    Mar 6th 2019, 9:08 PM

    @TheTrustedChalice: nope, just on 9pm news, critical but stable

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    Mute Rory Mahon
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    Mar 6th 2019, 11:16 PM

    I’m sure he was a pillar of society

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    Mute Michael Reilly
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    Mar 7th 2019, 10:52 AM

    @Rory Mahon: Absolutely. On his way home from “work”

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    Mute Jason Genovani
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    Mar 6th 2019, 9:35 PM

    Can we just throw Dublin away? It’s really doing a number on our murder rate.

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    Mute Margate
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    Mar 7th 2019, 1:03 AM

    @Jason Genovani: Yep. Has become an Embarrassing wee spot, alright.

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    Mute Rebecca De Stanleigh
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    Mar 7th 2019, 2:45 AM

    @Margate: yes so embarrassing. My god.

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    Mute John Hartigan
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    Mar 6th 2019, 6:22 PM

    Loads of cops at the border Brit watching

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    Mute Patabake Kennedy
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    Mar 6th 2019, 7:57 PM

    @John Hartigan: Where would we be without Brexit. Ask FG.

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    Mute Donald Piccione
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    Mar 6th 2019, 6:23 PM

    Passing by, on the scene, there is a van stopped and it seems they shot on the glass of the door. The road is still closed

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    Mute Carnac
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    Mar 6th 2019, 10:33 PM

    Need stricter gun laws… Oh I forget, we have the strictest gun laws already.

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    Mute Hundredth Idiot
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    Mar 6th 2019, 8:49 PM

    Point of order: Mulhuddart is north Dublin.

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    Mute kokonutter
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    Mar 6th 2019, 8:54 PM

    @Hundredth Idiot: point of order: Mulhuddart is West Dublin.

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    Mute Seaniecp
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    Mar 6th 2019, 9:01 PM

    @kokonutter: Hahaha. Yep west.

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    Mute TheTrustedChalice
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    Mar 6th 2019, 9:14 PM

    @Hundredth Idiot: east Ireland

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    Mute DeeM
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    Mar 6th 2019, 10:26 PM

    @Hundredth Idiot: No it’s not…it’s West Dublin. I live in North Dublin…no such problems here…..I wish!!!

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    Mute artur filip
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    Mar 6th 2019, 5:37 PM

    Posted from??

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    Mute paul kelly
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    Mar 6th 2019, 9:24 PM

    Just say no

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    Mute brendan H
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    Mar 7th 2019, 3:28 AM

    Plus all the reply’s were erased to from other people.

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    Mute Marty
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    Mar 7th 2019, 2:35 PM

    The new chief Wiggum is doing some job!
    Slowly starting to get outta hand let’s be honest here as bad as Limerick was this is on a new level.

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